A Twitter user who was friends with the rider took to social media to share the experience of her friend. According to reports, Uber initially refused to refund the overcharged money for a simple 5mile, 21-minute ride after the customer disputed it. However, later on in an interview with Business Insider, their spokesperson told that the rider has been refunded.

“There was an error and we have provided a full refund. We sincerely apologize to this rider for his experience. We have safeguards in place to help prevent something like this from happening and we are working to understand how this occurred.” said Uber’s spokesperson.

This is not the first time the popular ridesharing app is in the headlines again for overcharging. In 2015, a woman was charged $12,000 for a ride from her apartment to a bar in Manhattan. The trip was only 7-miles and 35 minutes long. Jaime Hessel was an old resident so she knew the area well and noticed that her driver seemed to be very distracted and ignored his GPS.

“I’m paying attention to his GPS, and I’m very familiar with the area, and I see him go right by McGuinness, and I’m really curious how he’s going to get to 50th Street,” Hessel said in an interview. She claimed for the disputed charges and an additional 7 minutes tracked on her trip which ultimately lead to a receipt of $56.40. The company owned up to the mistake of the driver’s negligence and promised to refund the overcharged $15.

However, Hessel noticed that the company has not refunded the charges rather sent an odd email. She told, “I received two emails yesterday. One about the status of my credit saying it should be there, it’s been processed. And then another email saying they are trying to charge me $16,000 but then $4000 had already been taken care of, so I owed them $12,000. I couldn’t even tell you what this was about because I checked my credit cards and there was no charge. I emailed them several times and they kept giving me the runaround. I am furious. I mean, you cant give me an explanation?”

Uber has been silent when it comes to resolving these issues. However, there are a few things that a rider can do should they ever need to dispute a charge. In the Uber app, click on the Past Trips icon. Click on “I was incorrectly charged a cancellation fee” or “I would like a refund”. If you click on the latter, there will be a number of options from which to choose. If you need to explain a unique situation that is not on the list, that option is also available.

1 Comment

I had similar problems with UBer although to to these levels. Twice they tried to charge me a cancellaton fee when it was their driver than cancelled. Finally. I was fed up with the same stonewalling and canceled my account. Now I am with 99Pop that works in the same manner but without the arrogance and problems.